This edited collection contends that if women are to enter into leadership positions at equal levels with their male colleagues, then sexism in all its forms must be acknowledged, attended to, and actively addressed. This interdisciplinary collection—Surviving Sexism in Academia: Strategies for Feminist Leadership—is part storytelling, part autoethnography, part action plan. The chapters document and analyze everyday sexism in the academy and offer up strategies for survival, ultimately 'lifting the veil" from the good old boys/business-as-usual culture that continues to pervade academia in both visible and less-visible forms, forms that can stifle even the most ambitious women in their careers.

Based on the author's 30 years of experience, this humorous book outlines the serious challenges facing women in in Australian universities. The book is a call to arms to women to take matters into their own hands. The first chapter, The Odds are Against You, paints a depressing picture. The numerical odds of women making it to the professoriate, university executive and board positions are outlined. Spoiler alert: they're not good and aren't improving. When almost one-third of Australian vice-chancellors left their posts in 2020, men mostly replaced men.Chapter Two, You're Expected to Be a Good Girl, outlines the gendered expectations, implicit assumptions, unconscious biases and sexism that university women face. Anecdotes of female professors being asked about cakes, carpets, curtains and colours help the reader confront shocking facts about their likely trajectory. The matters of invisibility; man-terruptions; bro-propriation; having the 'wrong' style; and being successful and liked at the same time are explored.In Chapter Three, Get An Attitude, the practical advice begins. The power of working within gendered expectations and avoiding 'unladylike' attitudes is examined. Examples of being a bad girl abound, including when it comes to so-called women's work. This chapter asks readers to start thinking about saying no and being bad at housework - at home and work. Emphasising the need to keep your ambition quiet if you are female, the fourth chapter, Prepare a Secret Strategy, focuses on defining success on your own terms, setting priorities and goals, and taking action. It ups the ante on saying no more often and being very bad at housework and sets some challenges for people-pleasing women.The title of Chapter Five, Do More of What Counts and Less of What Doesn't, gives away its focus. The summary is: do more self-promotion and less housework, but there's a bit of nuance for academic women seeking promotion.The advice to Form a Support Squad in Chapter Six draws on women's talents in building relationships and suggests an unusual approach to this endeavour. Chapter Seven, Beating the Odds, brings it all home with some humour and a shampoo ad.

The eleven essays making up this book unite scholars from various disciplines to explore how feminists live, survive, and thrive in academia. The pieces investigate innovative ways that women academics occupy the space of the Academy as real living bodies while resisting being judged, devalued, or valued on the basis of their biological bodies. Specific themes include abortion rights activism, authority in the classroom, feminist mentoring, the role of women's studies programs, division of labor, and the role of theater and performance in enacting lasting change.

Presumed Incompetent is a pathbreaking account of the intersecting roles of race, gender, and class in the working lives of women faculty of color. Through personal narratives and qualitative empirical studies, more than 40 authors expose the daunting challenges faced by academic women of color as they navigate the often hostile terrain of higher education, including hiring, promotion, tenure, and relations with students, colleagues, and administrators. The narratives are filled with wit, wisdom, and concrete recommendations, and provide a window into the struggles of professional women in a racially stratified but increasingly multicultural America.

The courageous and inspiring personal narratives and empirical studies in Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia name formidable obstacles and systemic biases that all women faculty—from diverse intersectional and transnational identities and from tenure track, terminal contract, and administrative positions—encounter in their higher education careers. They provide practical, specific, and insightful guidance to fight back, prevail, and thrive in challenging work environments. This new volume comes at a crucial historical moment as the United States grapples with a resurgence of white supremacy and misogyny at the forefront of our social and political dialogues that continue to permeate the academic world. Contributors: Marcia Allen Owens, Sarah Amira de la Garza, Sahar Aziz, Jacquelyn Bridgeman, Jamiella Brooks, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Kim Case, Donna Castaneda, Julia Chang, Meredith Clark, Meera Deo, Penelope Espinoza, Yvette Flores, Lynn Fujiwara, Jennifer Gomez, Angela Harris, Dorothy Hines, Rachelle Joplin, Jessica Lavariega Monforti, Cynthia Lee, Yessenia Manzo, Melissa Michelson, Susie E. Nam, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Jodi O’Brien, Amelia Ortega, Laura Padilla, Grace Park, Stacey Patton, Desdamona Rios, Melissa Michal Slocum, Nellie Tran, Rachel Tudor, Pamela Tywman Hoff, Adrien Wing, Jemimah Li Young

In Living a Feminist Life Sara Ahmed shows how feminist theory is generated from everyday life and the ordinary experiences of being a feminist at home and at work. Building on legacies of feminist of color scholarship in particular, Ahmed offers a poetic and personal meditation on how feminists become estranged from worlds they critique—often by naming and calling attention to problems—and how feminists learn about worlds from their efforts to transform them. Ahmed also provides her most sustained commentary on the figure of the feminist killjoy introduced in her earlier work while showing how feminists create inventive solutions—such as forming support systems—to survive the shattering experiences of facing the walls of racism and sexism. The killjoy survival kit and killjoy manifesto, with which the book concludes, supply practical tools for how to live a feminist life, thereby strengthening the ties between the inventive creation of feminist theory and living a life that sustains it.